AFRICA

I don’t know if they showed it in your country, but Robert Mugabe was booed, audibly booed in parliament this week. That’s a huge step in terms of the courage that people feel. That has never happened in history for Mugabe. The opposition party, MDC, won the speaker of Parliament Position. And there are many more MDC members in Parliament, so it is definitely a new day. Even some of the people who have spoken in Parliament have said they do not recognize his authority or regime. Right now, we’re not sure when the trilateral talks will resume to create a government where both Mugabe and Tsvangirai rule. My church was praying for the situation last Sunday. Last Saturday we had the “most famous pastor in Zim” speak for the students from 10AM-1PM. I think they did it like a workshop. I missed it, but Bones (this pastor) will do both morning and evening services this coming weekend. The funny thing is that he’s on vacation!
China in its continued efforts in Africa is opening up a Ghanaian campus of the China Europe International Business School based in Shanghai. This new location will be in the capital, Accra. It will have classes every 2.5 months, 10 8-day sessions spread out over two years. Its flagship program will be an MBA in business innovation.

In addition to Bernie Mac, Isaac Hayes, the Saxophonist for Dave Matthews, etc., the president of Zambia passed away. Levy Mwanawasa did a lot for Zambia in terms of fighting corruption and bringing money into the country (investments) through decent policies. Funny enough, he turned against his predecessor by not allowing him amnesty or not allowing him t get off on all his 168 counts of theft. Mwanawasa had a lot of health problems and so it was not surprising. But he seemed to be a good president making Zambia one of the biggest recipients of Chinese investment. I particularly liked how he spoke out against Mugabe (the Botswana president wouldn’t even attend the SADC talks because Mugabe was allowed to attend), and I wish he was better at the time to be able to go and criticize him personally/ Rest in peace.

We have violence all over including random acts of violence in places like Algeria and Somalia which has no real sense of government. The port city of Kismayu has now been captured by Somali “Islamists”.

A Sudanese commercial plane was hijacked and sent to Libya as it took off from Darfur towards Khartoum. Eventually the hijackers surrendered and freed the prisoners.